Articles by Daniel White -
An Australian adviser and former lawyer who focuses on the key Labor theme of 'security and opportunity'. Topics of articles will include Australian Politics, International Politics, UN, History, Athletics and Music, Movies & Books Reviews.

We must, and I hope we will, continue to be united with our allies in a powerful world organization which is ready and able to keep the peace – if necessary by force.

On 30 November 1943, in the midst of a dinner party celebration for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s 69th birthday during the Teheran Conference, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) handed his advisor and close friend Harry Hopkins a sketch.[2] Roosevelt had just presented Churchill with a beautiful Persian porcelain vase for his birthday and in the midst of a discussion between Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin regarding the OVERLORD mission (the opening up of the Western Front by the Allied power to defeat the Nazis in World War II), FDR, who ‘loved to draw charts’, was inspired to draw a sketch to clarify his thoughts about creating a new world security organization.[3] FDR drew three circles, which represented his conception of the basis of the United Nations (UN) international organization. The center circle was marked ‘Executive Committee’, the one on the right ‘4 policemen’ and the one on the left ‘40 United Nations’ (The General Assembly) under which came ‘I.L.O.-Health-Agricultural-Food’ (specialized agencies).[4] This sketch, according to Roosevelt’s speechwriter Robert Sherwood, ‘was the first crude outline of the UN structure put down by Roosevelt’ and was handed to Hopkins who passed it onto Stalin and Churchill at that Dinner party.[5] Although Roosevelt had actually presented the ideas in his sketch to Stalin the day before drawing the sketch, this diagram marked a defining moment in the process of creating the UN, as Roosevelt through drawing this clear and simple sketch was able to reveal succinctly his preferred model for creating a new world security organization, which also formed the basis on which FDR decided to proceed and gain agreements from Churchill and Stalin for the need to create a new global body for world peace at the Teheran Conference of 1943.

Central to the sketch was FDR’s concept of the ‘Four Policemen’(United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and China), according to which a small security commission would be created comprising the four great allied powers, which would assume roles of ensuring world peace by acting as policemen to prevent and punish acts of aggression. Unlike Roosevelt’s ideas regarding the General Assembly, the Executive Council and the specialized agencies, which were investigative bodies that dealt with non-security issues, this security commission would be the key body in the new international organization and would have real power to deal with the main security issues threatening the globe. Although it is true that the Great Allied Powers would play a major role in any postwar international organization depending on their victory in World War II, Roosevelt’s ‘Four Policemen’ concept was nonetheless significant because it revealed FDR intentions that the four main Allied powers needed to cooperate and assume policing roles in order to keep the peace and importantly prevent conflict among the Great Powers. Although Churchill favoured a more regionally based organization, Roosevelt was a strong believer in this concept, especially after forming a strong friendship with Chiang Kai Shek (China’s nationalist leader) prior to the Teheran Conference of 1943 and Stalin during the Teheran Conference. It was his hope that if the four nations went forward together then there was a real hope for a more peaceful world. Consequently Roosevelt sought to create an international organization with the four major powers playing a central role.[6]

In all the voluminous accounts on the genesis of the UN, Robert Sherwood’s book Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History is the only book to make a direct reference to FDR’s sketch at the Teheran conference, however Sherwood fails to grasp its significance, mentioning it only in passing.[7] In the Harry Hopkins file on the Teheran Conference of 1943 in the sub section entitled ‘Dinner – The British Legation, Tuesday, November 30, 1943’, there are two documents a sketch and a note explaining that Roosevelt had handed the sketch to Hopkins who passed it around the dinner table before placing it in the file.[8] In contrast to Sherwood the aim of this thesis is to show that this sketch by Roosevelt, which includes his ‘Four Policemen’ concept, contributed to the process of creating the UN in 1945. In particular, FDR’s sketch was significant in three essential ways. First, up until the Teheran Conference of 1943, Roosevelt’s ideas regarding the UN’s structure were in flux and open to change, however by drawing the sketch at Teheran Roosevelt had settled on his preferred model for creating a new world security organization. Although Roosevelt had been working on the ‘Four Policemen’ idea with his advisors from the US State Department for many years and he had even discussed the concept with Stalin only the day before drawing the sketch, this diagram, nevertheless, marked a significant moment in the process of creating the UN, as Roosevelt through drawing this clear and simple sketch was able to put forward his favoured model for creating a new global body, which was based around the ‘Four Policemen’ concept. Secondly, despite the fact that no one quite knows what led Stalin to change his view and support the idea of creating a global body, Roosevelt’s diplomatic skills at the Teheran Conference of 1943 and the clarity and simplicity of this sketch had probably proved to be decisive factors in convincing Stalin and Churchill to support the creation of an international organization. Thus, it was based on the model found in the sketch that Roosevelt sought to gain the cooperation of Stalin and Churchill, who both favoured creating a fragmented regional organization. In the end Roosevelt was successful because at the end of the Teheran Conference the Great Allied Powers signed the ‘Three Power Declaration’, whereby they agreed to establish as soon as possible ‘a wider and permanent system of general security.’[9] Finally, although after Teheran Roosevelt was willing to negotiate and make some changes to the model outlined in his sketch at future conferences in order to accommodate different views, the changes made at the Dumbarton Oaks, Yalta and San Francisco Conferences did not undermine the basic ideas found in Roosevelt’s sketch, and thus Roosevelt’s model had remained intact and left a lasting legacy.

The sketch reinforces how important Roosevelt and his leadership qualities were in directing the US campaign to create a new international organization according to his model. Although Eleanor Roosevelt, Hopkins, the US Congress, the American media, members of the US State Department such as Cordell Hull, Leo Pasvolsky, Summer Welles, Edward Stettinius, and Vice President Harry Truman played an active and supporting role in coming up with ideas about the structure and scope of a global organization, it was FDR who instigated its planning and formation. Roosevelt was also the most passionate and committed leader of the allied Great Powers in wanting to form a new world security organization and used his diplomatic skills successfully to explain to Churchill and Stalin that their own ideas of a regionally based institution would not be feasible, as an international organization would create a more united organization and would be better prepared at dealing with international crises.[10] On 1 January 1942 Roosevelt went even so far as to personally come up with the name ‘United Nations’, when he signed the Declaration of the United Nations, which committed the US and 25 other Allied nations to the principles of the Atlantic Charter of 1941.[11] In supporting the concept of a UN Roosevelt also pushed the US into a more internationalist foreign policy agenda in defiance of the nation’s support for isolationism, through which he hoped that the anarchy inherent in a system of sovereign states might be reduced to a simple system of international cooperation.[12] In summing up this idea Roosevelt said in 1944 that, ‘we must, and I hope we will, continue to be united with our allies in a powerful world organization which is ready and able to keep the peace – if necessary by force.’[13] Without Roosevelt’s passion and vision the UN as we know it may have not been formed.

The formation of the UN has been the focus of much study, inspired by the growing importance of the UN in world affairs. The most recent account on this subject is Stephen Schlesinger’s Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations, which focuses on assessing the role of the San Francisco conference of 1945, as there had ‘never been a full length study done on the climatic conference in San Francisco.’[14] Schlesinger argues that the San Francisco Conference would not have occurred without the efforts by Edward Stettinius, Leo Pasvolsky, Summer Welles, President Harry Truman and the great ‘visionary’ in President Roosevelt.[15] In particular, Schlesinger argues that Leo Pasvolsky played a vital role in providing President Roosevelt with various different proposals regarding the structure of a new global body throughout World War II, while Roosevelt’s diplomatic skills at the Yalta Conference rather than the Teheran Conference proved decisive in leading the creation of the UN, as he ensured that the San Francisco Conference would take place. Yet without Roosevelt’s diplomatic skills at Teheran in securing a commitment among the great powers to create a new international organization the San Francisco Conference would not have occurred. Schlesinger’s central argument, however, was that the US government ‘prepared a elaborate spying scheme [at] San Francisco to guarantee its control over the conclave’, and that the US Secret Service played a significant role in making sure the US’s model for creating a new world security organization prevailed.[16] Although Schlesinger has unearthed new details about the role of the US Secret Service at the San Francisco Conference, his account downplays FDR’s personal role in creating the UN and only briefly mentions the Teheran Conference in favour of assessing the San Francisco Conference, which was held after Roosevelt had died on 12 April 1945.[17] Finally, Schlesinger argues that the San Francisco Conference marked the defining moment in the process of creating the UN because it actually led to the UN being officially created, whereas this thesis will argue that the defining moment came at the Teheran Conference because it was at that Conference that Great Allied Powers made it clear that they were committed to creating a new international organization and without this commitment conferences like the one at San Francisco would not have been held.[18]

Georg Schild’s book Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks also downplays the significance of the Teheran Conference of 1943 as marking a defining moment in the process of creating the UN. Although Schild provides an erudite account of the evolution of the FDR’s ‘Four Policemen’ concept, he believes that the Dumbarton Oaks Conference of 1944 marked the key point in creating the UN because it was the first time the diplomats from the Great Powers had come together to form a united model for the UN that aimed to ‘prevent local conflicts from turning into World War III.’[19] Yet without Roosevelt’s diplomatic skills at Teheran in ensuring that and major powers reached an agreement to establish ‘a wider and permanent system of general security’ the Dumbarton Oaks Conference would not have taken place.[20]

A comprehensive study on the genesis of the UN, however, is Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley’sFDR and the Creation of the UN (1997), which provides a descriptive overview of the many factors and events that led to the formation of the UN. In this well written and engrossing book Hoopes and Brinkley argue that the UN was largely formed by the ‘initiative and determination’ of FDR.[21] On this point this thesis is in agreement because Roosevelt was the pivotal player in the creation of the UN. Importantly, Hoopes and Brinkley goes on to articulate Roosevelt’s ‘Four Policemen’ concept or the ‘Roosevelt Doctrine’ and argue that FDR laid out this vision for a postwar United Nations organization during the second private meeting with Stalin at the Teheran conference of 1943. Yet in their detailed analysis on Teheran they neglected the fact that Roosevelt had actually reaffirmed his model for the UN based around the ‘Four Policemen’ concept the day after his discussions with Stalin through drawing a sketch during a dinner party celebrating Churchill’s 69th birthday.[22] Moreover, Hoopes and Brinkley downplay the full extent of FDR’s diplomatic skills on the successful outcome of gaining Stalin and Churchill’s support at Teheran for creating a new world security organization, as evidenced through the ‘Three Power Declaration’.[23] Finally, this thesis, unlike Hoopes and Brinkley, will argue that the ‘Three Power Declaration’ at the Teheran Conference marked the unofficial birth of the UN.[24]

The main primary sources used for this thesis were based upon research conducted at the FDR Library in Hyde Park, New York (USA), during July 2006, and include the President’s personal file and the files of the President’s secretary, Harry Hopkins and Summer Welles. In particular, seeing the sketch on display at the Roosevelt Museum at Hyde Park and realizing that the curators identified the sketch as integral to the establishment of the UN also proved to be an important source of inspiration for this thesis. Other key sources include Charles B. Bohlen’s minutes from the Teheran and Yalta Conferences, as found in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS); FDR’s letters of correspondence between his staff and world leaders; his speeches and extracts from his presidential press conferences; newspaper articles and UN documents; and memoirs or private papers by other crucial players in the creation of the UN such as Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, Summer Welles, Edward Stettinius, Cordell Hull and Winston Churchill.

This thesis will comprise of three chapters. The first chapter will trace the origins of the UN organization and the ‘Four Policemen’ idea and show how this idea influenced FDR to draw this sketch. In particular, this chapter will show that although Roosevelt had been working on the ‘Four Policemen’ idea with his advisors from the US State Department for many years and he had even discussed the concept with Stalin only the day before drawing the sketch, this diagram by Roosevelt had actually marked a significant moment in the process of creating the UN, as Roosevelt through drawing this clear and simple sketch was able to unveil his favoured model for creating a new global body, which was based around the ‘Four Policemen’ concept. The second chapter will explain in detail Roosevelt’s diplomatic triumph at the Teheran Conference of 1943. In particular, this chapter will show that despite the fact that no one quite knows what led Stalin to change his view and support the idea of creating a global body, Roosevelt’s diplomatic skills at the Teheran Conference of 1943 and the clarity and simplicity of this sketch had probably proved to be decisive factors in convincing Stalin and Churchill to support the creation of an international organization. Moreover, this chapter will show that Roosevelt was successful in gaining a committed from Stalin and Churchill to establish a new global body through the signing of the ‘Three Power Declaration’, and that because of this the declaration marked the unofficial birth of the UN.[25] The final chapter will trace the legacy of the sketch and show that while Roosevelt was willing to negotiate and make some changes to the model outlined in his sketch at Teheran, the changes made at the Dumbarton Oaks, Yalta and San Francisco Conferences only slightly modified the model outlined in FDR’s sketch and still kept Roosevelt’s the Great Power concept alive.

This thesis thus aims to foster a deeper appreciation of the crucial role that Roosevelt played in the creation of the UN in 1945. The thesis also attempts to show how Roosevelt’s clear and concise sketch provides a powerful tool in helping to create the UN. Finally, the thesis intends to show how difficult the diplomatic process was for FDR in trying to turn a utopian idea for a new world security organization into reality, and to show how strong leadership was necessary for Roosevelt to be successful in fulfilling his goal of creating an effective international organization to ensure lasting peace.

CHAPTER 1: THE ORIGINS OF THE SKETCH: THE FOUR POLICEMEN CONCEPT

"As long as [the Great powers] stick together in determination to keep the peace there will be no possibility of an aggressor nation arising to start another world war."

From the beginning of World War II President Roosevelt had the foresight to realize that America should take a central role in forming a new world security organization to ensure that another world war could be avoided. Consequently, in 1939 Roosevelt began plans to create an international organization. The failure of the League of Nations to prevent World War II had shown that if a new organization was to be effective in keeping the peace it needed to have more power to act.[27] The question became how to structure this new body and Roosevelt asked the US State Department in 1939 to work on the problem. The State Department put forward various alternatives, including forming a democratically structured international organization. In this concept decisions would be passed after achieving a majority of votes, instead of requiring an unanimous vote as in the old League of Nations. Both Churchill and Stalin advocated a regionally structured organization because the League had failed to live up to its goals of providing an effective international forum to solve global crises, as competing interests by member states of the League had compromised the League’s efforts to prevent World War II.[28] Up until the Teheran Conference of 1943 Roosevelt’s ideas regarding the UN’s structure were in flux and open to change, however by drawing the sketch at Teheran Roosevelt had settled on his preferred model for creating a new world security organization. Although Roosevelt had been working on the ‘Four Policemen’ idea with his advisors from the US State Department for many years and he had even discussed the concept with Stalin only the day before drawing the sketch, this diagram, nevertheless, marked a significant moment in the process of creating the UN, as Roosevelt through drawing this clear and simple sketch put forward his favoured model for creating a new global body, which was based around the ‘Four Policemen’ concept. From this date onwards Roosevelt was now committed to the structure shown in the sketch and future negotiations would take place around this model. The aim of this chapter is to show the step-by-step evolution of how FDR’s ideas regarding the creation of an international institution developed, including the ‘Four Policemen’ concept, and to show that Roosevelt by drawing the sketch had actually settled on a model for the UN in a defining moment at the Teheran Conference, which is neglected by other historical accounts with the exception of Sherwood.[29]

FDR’s initial desire to create the UN was heavily influenced by his support of former US president Woodrow Wilson’s creation of the League of Nations in 1920, as an organization devoted to ensuring world peace.[30] According to the historian Gethart Niemeyer, once the UN was established in 1945 ‘the United Nations was seen as a “descendent” or a “mutation” of the League.’[31] FDR was Assistant Secretary to the Navy under the Wilson Administrationand supported the League but was critical of its structure. As the Democratic Vice President nominee in 1920, Franklin Roosevelt made more than eight hundred speeches in support of the US becoming a member of the League of Nations, however he was unsuccessful in encouraging the US to become a member of the League, as the US remained isolationist. In 1923, now as a private citizen, Roosevelt developed a ‘Plan to Preserve World Peace’ for a competition sponsored by the Saturday Evening Post for the American Peace Award.[32]Its most notable feature was his realist proposal to eliminate the League’s Covenant requirement for unanimity in decisions involving sanctions and the use of collective force. Initially, therefore, Roosevelt was committed to designing a more democratic and workable structure for establishing a new international organization and did not see the major powers playing such a key role in a new body. Roosevelt in 1933 also stated that he was still in favor of America’s entry into the League and said that he ‘would go so far as to seek to win over the overwhelming opposition which exists in the country today.’[33] He declared, however, that the League as it had evolved was not the League that Wilson had envisioned and founded. According to Conrad Black, FDR blamed the failure of the League on the United States isolationist position and that this led to the degeneration of the League into ‘a mere meeting place for the political discussion of sticky European political national difficulties’, as France and Britain consistently blocked the League’s efforts to respond effectively to aggression and used the League as an instrument for their own self-destructive policies.[34] Hence, FDR had gained valuable experience from the failures of the League of Nations, which would prove useful in his own attempt to create a new international organization to bring about lasting peace.[35]

THE CREATION OF THE US STATE DEPARTMENT’S POSTWAR COMMITTEE IN 1939

In 1939 Roosevelt ordered the Secretary of State Cordell Hull to set up a special advisory committee to prepare secret plans for the post war period. FDR also gave the State Department a clear and specific mandate:

what I expect you to do is to have prepared for me the necessary number of baskets and the necessary number of alternative solutions for each problem in the baskets, so that when the time comes all I have to do is to reach into a basket and fish out a number of solutions that I am sure are sound and from which I can make my own choice.[36]

In response to Roosevelt’s order, Hull created an in-house research team dedicated to a global security plan. To lead the planning, Hull choose his long-time personal assistant, Leo Pasvolsky, a Russian-born economist, as a special aide for the problems of peace and gave him the authority to direct the postwar planning committee.[37]

Hull and Pasvolsky worked closely together and began to provide Roosevelt with a variety of options. At first Pasvolsky spent a lot of time assessing the flaws of the League and it was not until 1942 that he had come up with a detailed proposal for Hull and Roosevelt.[38] In the spring of 1942 Pasvolsky presented the first preliminary sketch of an international organization to FDR, which included a secretariat, an embryonic ‘Executive Council’ and a large ‘General Assembly’, each assigned with differing levels of powers.[39] In addition, according to Schlesinger and Russell:

the advisory committee suggested that the old League’s rule of unanimity should be replaced by some form of majority rule; that nine separate blocs of nations be represented in the assembly; and finally, that an independent police force be set up.[40]

Hull and Pasvolsky also provided Roosevelt with many other alternatives, but this was the main proposal that they put forward to Roosevelt and the closest to the eventual structure of the UN.

ROOSEVELT AND THE FOUR POLICEMEN CONCEPT

The Undersecretary of State and FDR’s close friend Summer Welles, who was a member of the postwar committee, however was able to catch Roosevelt’s attention with his draft charter, which based around a ‘Four Policemen’ concept. According to the historian Benjamin Welles, ‘Roosevelt started his dream of a postwar world…but it was Welles, his global planner, whom he assigned to put it on paper.’[41] This draft charter was derived from a Four Power Plan produced by the US State Department and the British Foreign Office in August 1942, but it was Welles who presented the idea to Roosevelt in October 1942. Welles recommended ‘a security commission’ should be created, which would provide all of the forces needed for keeping the peace and would operate under the general authority of an Executive Committee. This Executive Committee would comprise the main Allied powers and approximately five or seven other representatives from the regions of Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, the Far East and possibly, the Middle East. After Roosevelt was shown this proposal he became quite supportive of this idea of the ‘Four Policemen.’[42]

Despite Roosevelt’s willingness to consider other options regarding the creation of a new global body to ensure world peace, by late 1942 he had warmed to the idea of creating a new international organization based around the ‘Four Policemen’ concept. Roosevelt hoped that the four Great Allied Powers would cooperate after the war and would jointly assume important roles of overseeing a separate area of the world and prevent aggression there.[43] According to Hoopes and Brinkley, Roosevelt had an ‘ingrained belief in the rightful primacy of the strong, combined with the moral concept of the ‘trusteeship of the powerful for the well being of the less powerful.’[44] Hence, to overcome the failure of the League of Nations and to make a new security structure more effective, Roosevelt intended to give a small number of powerful states the major responsibility for maintaining peace. Those core states, rather than a General Assembly of all nations, would be charged with handling acute political crises.[45]

Moreover, Roosevelt was also an advocate of the great power concept because he postulated two kinds of security threats occurring. A minor threat might arise from a revolution or civil war in a small country, or a border dispute between small neighboring states; this could be dealt with by trade embargoes and similar quarantine measures. A major threat might arise from the aggression of a powerful state; this would require an ultimatum from the ‘Four Policemen’ threatening to bomb or invade the aggressor nation.[46] Yet Roosevelt was naïve in not foreseeing the possibility of conflict amongst the great powers, especially given the Soviet Union’s Communist ideology. According to Sherwood, there ‘seems to be no evidence of any discussion of the possibility that the offending aggressor might be one of the ‘Four Policemen.’[47] Hence, every conflict between the policemen would deadlock the entire organization and carry with it the danger of another global war.

CHURCHILL’S REGIONAL CONCEPT

Churchill, however, had a different view and was in favor of a regionally structured international organization. Although Churchill had pledged with Roosevelt to establish a ‘wider and permanent system of general security’ and set up an ‘effective international organization’ at the Atlantic Conference on 14 August 1941, by 1943 Churchill had changed his views.[48] In February 1943 Churchill sent FDR some ‘Morning Thoughts on Postwar Security’, which included his idea of forming a regionally based organization. Churchill suggested there should be a ‘Council of Europe’ and a ‘Council of Asia’, and that these regionally based structures would ensure ‘the preservation of peace…justice…and prosperity’ in the postwar world. In March 1943 Churchill added a third regional council, one for the Western hemisphere or the Americas, after talks with Roosevelt.[49]

(FDR and Churchill at the Atlantic Conference of 1941)

During his third visit to Washington in May 1943 Churchill expressed three reservations regarding Roosevelt’s ‘Four Policemen’ concept. First, Churchill doubted that China could be granted great power status. China, he declared, ‘was not comparable to the others.’[50] Roosevelt replied by stating that:

the recognition of China’s status as one of the four major powers would prevent any charge that the white races were undertaking to dominate the world; that it would do much to stimulate Chinese patriotism and national pride and to pull together the various contending factions.[51]

The second reservation concerned Churchill’s interest in regional security councils. According to the Prime Minister’s plans, there would be three regional councils for the three territorial units one for Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and Asia, underneath a single world council. The main difference between Roosevelt and Churchill’s concepts, however, was that, according to the American plan, the Soviet Union and China would participate in the solution of every international dispute. The British plan, however, sought to eliminate China completely and to reduce the role of the Soviet Union in solving disputes in Eastern Europe. The third difference between Roosevelt and Churchill’s views concerned the role of smaller states in the world council, which was made up of just the four great powers who had the responsibility to maintain the peace. Roosevelt did not want to grant them any role at all, but Churchill believed that other states from regional councils should join the Four Powers on a rotating basis.[52]

In response to Churchill’s reservations Roosevelt moved very slightly away from the ‘Four Policemen’ concept and towards Churchill’s position. On 10 April 1943 in an article entitled ‘Roosevelt’s World Blue Print’, written by Forrest Davis for the Saturday Evening Post, Roosevelt expressed his new views regarding the establishment of a new world organization. Roosevelt now proposed that there should be two security commissions: one, including the US, Britain and Russia, looking after the affairs of Europe; another, including China, for Asia. These countries would have a monopoly of armed force, and there would thus be no need for international forces or international bases.[53] According to Schild, this was just one example to show how FDR’s ideas regarding the structure for the UN were in flux and ‘underwent considerable changes’ up until the Teheran Conference.[54] The article also revealed that Roosevelt’s main concern for the postwar order was to prevent the recurrence of the breaches of peace that had plagued international diplomacy in the 1930s and that the Second World War had demonstrated that the defensive forces of small states, such as Belgium, were no match against a larger aggressor. Those states ‘may as well disarm’ and rely on the protection and effectiveness of the great powers.[55] Internationalists, however, were shocked by this proposal and responded with the demand that Roosevelt avoid a military alliance of the strong against the weak by backing an organization in which all countries had an equal voice. Thus, despite Roosevelt being opposed to a ‘heavily organized, bureaucratic world organization’ and preferring instead the great powers taking the lead, he was still not entirely sure whether it was the best model for creating a new international organization after observing Churchill’s reservations.[56]

THE TEHERAN CONFERENCE OF 1943

Roosevelt, however, during the first meeting of the ‘Big Three’ allied leaders at the Teheran Conference of November-December 1943; made his intentions absolutely clear regarding the structure of a new world security organization. During Roosevelt’s second private meeting with Stalin on 29 November 1943, as Hoopes and Brinkley clearly point out, FDR laid out the US plan for a postwar international organization, which was designed by the State Department but approved by Roosevelt. This proposal would form the inspiration for Roosevelt in drawing his sketch and was presented in three parts. First, there would be a worldwide assembly comprising all the United Nations; it would have no fixed headquarters, but would meet in various places to discuss world problems. Next, there would be an Executive Council composed of the ‘Big Four’ plus six or seven representatives selected from several groups – two from Europe and one each from Latin America, the Middle East, the Far East, and the British Dominions. This Executive Council would deal with ‘all non military questions’, such as food, health, and economics. Finally, as he had done with Churchill earlier, FDR presented the ‘Four Policemen’ entity – an enforcement body, composed of ‘Four Policemen’, with authority to deal swiftly with any emergency or threat to the peace.[57]

On 30 November 1943 in the midst of the dinner party celebrating Churchill’s birthday at Teheran, FDR also drew a sketch that reaffirmed his preferred model for creating a new global body, which he had presented to Stalin the day before.[58] This marked a defining moment because after three years of thinking about the best model for creating a new international organization and after seeking the advice and views from his advisors and world leaders, Roosevelt through drawing this clear and simple sketch was able to put forward his favoured model for creating a new global body, which was based around the ‘Four Policemen’ concept. After the Teheran Conference Roosevelt expressed his decision in favour of the model shown in the sketch, which included the ‘Four Policemen’ concept by stating that:

Britain, Russia, China and the United States and their Allies represent more than three-quarters of the total population of the earth. As long as these four nations with great military power stick together in determination to keep the peace there will be no possibility of an aggressor nation arising to start another world war.[59]

Through drawing the sketch at the Teheran Conference Roosevelt had thus worked out the best model to proceed forward in the process of creating the UN and in doing so the idea of creating a new world security organization was starting to take shape.[60] Despite the fact that Schlesinger and Schild argue that the San Francisco and Dumbarton Oaks Conferences, respectively, were defining moments in the process of creating the UN, the Teheran Conference of 1943 in fact marked the defining moment because up until Teheran Roosevelt’s ideas regarding the UN’s structure were in flux, however by drawing the sketch at Teheran Roosevelt had settled on his preferred model for creating a new world security organization.

Therefore, on 30 November 1943 during dinner party celebrating Churchill’s 69th birthday at the Teheran Conference Roosevelt had clearly expressed his vision for creating a new international organization when he drew his sketch and passed it on to Churchill and Stalin. The Teheran Conference thus marks a pivotal point in the process of creating the UN because Roosevelt had not only decided upon his preferred model for the UN but also aimed to work over future conferences to retain this model as best he could, as he attempted to secure the support from Stalin and Churchill for creating a new world security organization. Thus, now that Roosevelt had clear ideas on how to structure the new international organization for world peace, his next goal was to make his vision become a reality and in doing so he needed to convince other allied world leaders, especially Churchill and Stalin of the merits of his proposal.

CHAPTER 2: THE TEHERAN CONFERENCE: FDR’S DIPLOMATIC TRIUMPH

FDR’s inspiring vision, his high statesmanship, and his superb leadership were factors without which the UN could not [have been formed].

Once the US had been forced into World War II due to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, FDR was keen to have a meeting of the main allied leaders to discuss plans to defeat the Axis Powers and to discuss the US proposal for creating an international organization to ensure lasting peace. Eventually it was decided by the Great Allied Powers to hold a conference in Teheran between November and December 1943. At Teheran Roosevelt wanted the chance to talk to Stalin for the first time in person about the war effort and to convince him to support the creation of a world security organization based primarily around the ‘Four Policemen’ concept. However, Roosevelt found himself in competition with Churchill’s advocacy of a regionally structured organization that also encompassed the interests of smaller states. Initially, Stalin was attracted to Churchill’s regional structured concept, however after private one-on-one talks with Roosevelt at the Teheran Conference of 1943 and after seeing the sketch he changed his views in favour of FDR’s model. In the end Roosevelt’s diplomatic skills and most probably the sketch were relevant in convincing Stalin to support the President’s proposal; even though it is not known for certain what actually led Stalin to change his point of view.[2] The aim of this chapter is to show that Roosevelt’s diplomatic skills at the Teheran Conference of 1943 and the clarity and simplicity of this sketch had probably proved to be decisive factors in convincing Stalin and Churchill to support the creation of an international organization. This chapter will also show that it was based on the model found in the sketch that Roosevelt sought to gain the cooperation of Stalin and Churchill, who both favoured creating a fragmented regional organization. Finally, this chapter will show that in the end Roosevelt diplomatic efforts were successful at Teheran because at the end of the Conference the Great Allied Powers signed the ‘Three Power Declaration’, which not only committed the Great Powers to setting up ‘a wider and permanent system of general security’ but also marked the unofficial birth of the UN.[3]

The first step in trying to convene a meeting of the ‘Big Three’ allied leaders - Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin - was made during the October 1943 Moscow Conference of foreign ministers. It was during this conference that the foreign ministers decided on Teheran as the setting for this historical meeting for these three heads of states. This conference also created a ‘Four-Nation Declaration’ (US, UK, Soviet Union and China), which recognized the necessity of establishing ‘a general international organization, based on the principle of sovereign equality among states, and open to membership by all such states, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security.’[4] By the time this was announced Roosevelt had started to prepare and formalize the US position for the upcoming Teheran Conference regarding the establishment of a new global body. Once this was finalized Roosevelt headed to Teheran via Cairo, where he met the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek in November 1943, and with the help of Hull and Hopkins ensured Chinese involvement in the task of creating a global body.[5] According to Hull, ‘had I not persisted in the effort to get China in as one of the original signatories, her claim to permanent membership on the Security Council of the UN would not have been solid.’[6] Once FDR had secured Chinese support for his campaign to create a new international organization he moved on to Teheran to seek Stalin’s support for US plans.

THE TEHERAN CONFERENCE OF 1943

(Big Three meet at the Teheran Conference in 1943)

Although the primary focus of the Teheran Conference was to discuss the Allied war effort, the Conference also dealt with postwar political issues thanks to Roosevelt’s initiative. At Teheran Roosevelt faced a difficult task in gaining Stalin’s support for US plans for the postwar world, as Stalin was in favour of Churchill’s regional concept. Roosevelt needed Soviet support because a security organization without Soviet participation would not be effective.[7] Roosevelt’s solution was to use his diplomatic skills to pursue an amicable relationship and to be sincere in negotiations with Stalin at Teheran.[8] According to Butler, ‘Roosevelt at Teheran was also well aware of Stalin’s mistrust and suspicion of foreigners and sought to pursue a friendly relationship.’ [9] Divine also notes that Roosevelt was under no illusions about the difficulty of securing Russian co-operation due to their ideological differences, but he told Welles that he would do all he could to achieve it, since he was convinced that a future international organization depended upon ‘the way by which the Soviet Union and the US can work together.’[10] Roosevelt insisted to his advisors that the best way to convince Stalin to support US plans was to have one-on-one private talks with Stalin, so that Stalin felt privileged and that it did not seem like Roosevelt and Churchill were conspiring against Stalin. Roosevelt’s advisors agreed and went on to organize private meetings with Stalin, to Stalin’s gratification.[11]

Upon arrival at Teheran Roosevelt greeted Stalin warmly and stated that he was looking forward to talking to him for the first time in person. The first private meeting that FDR had with Stalin focused on the Allied war plans regarding World War II. Nonetheless, during Roosevelt’s second private meeting with Stalin on 29 November 1943, FDR actually found time to present the US plan for a postwar international organization, comprising of a General Assembly, an Executive Council, specialized agencies and the ‘Four Policemen’ concept.[12] Initially, Stalin was not impressed by Roosevelt’s policemen concept. In later private talks with Roosevelt Stalin echoed Churchill’s doubt that China was or could become a world power and argued in favour of a fragmented regional organization where there would be one committee for Europe and another for the Far East and Americas.[13] For example, Stalin, according to Hopkins, ‘expressed the opinion that this proposal for the Four Policemen would not be favorably received by the small nations of Europe.’[14] Churchill, who resented being left out of the private Roosevelt-Stalin meetings, later wrote that Stalin’s preference for regional committees showed him to be ‘more prescient and possessed of a truer sense of values than the President.’[15] At the same time, the Prime Minster expressed annoyance that FDR had failed to explain the British regional approach that ‘contemplated a Supreme United Nations Council, of which the three regional committees would be the components.’[16] Thus, through having private meetings with Stalin, Roosevelt had not only made sure that Stalin clearly understood the US model but had also prevented Churchill from undermining his diplomatic efforts by advocating his regional concept that he had favoured.

On 30 November 1943, Roosevelt sought once again to use diplomacy and charm to gain Stalin’s support for creating an international organization. According to Welles, FDR had great assurance in his personal powers both to ‘understand and get people to do what he wanted by argument.’[17] On the morning of 30 November 1943 Roosevelt had yet another private meeting with Stalin but was still unsuccessful and was becoming tired from his diplomatic efforts. That evening Roosevelt made his way to Churchill’s 69th birthday party, which was a refreshing change to his diplomatic stalemate. Churchill commented that his 69th birthday party in Teheran ‘was a memorable occasion in my life,’ because:

on my right sat the president of the United States, on my left the master of Russia. Together we controlled a large preponderance of the naval and three-quarters of all the air forces in the world, and could direct armies of nearly twenty millions men, engaged in the most terrible of wars that had yet occurred in human history.[18]

But in the midst of the dinner party Roosevelt sought to once again communicate his preferred model for creating a new world security organization to Stalin and Churchill, in order to gain their support. Instead of presenting another formal proposal, Roosevelt during the dinner party decided to draw a clear and simple sketch outlining his favoured model for creating a new global body for world peace. Roosevelt also drew the sketch because, according to Sherwood, Roosevelt ‘loved to draw charts’, as a way of communicating with people.[19] After drawing his sketch, Roosevelt handed it to Hopkins who quickly passed it onto Churchill and Stalin.[20] In so doing Roosevelt was again able to push his idea for a new world security organization one last time before retiring to bed.

The next day Stalin delighted and surprised Roosevelt on the last day of the conference by saying that he had been thinking about the structure of the world organization as envisioned by the President, and now agreed with Roosevelt that it should be a worldwide organization and not a fragmented regionally based one. This was an amazing turn in events. It seems that FDR’s diplomatic skills and the clarity of his sketch had probably played a role in convincing Stalin of Roosevelt’s structure for a new global body, even though no one knows quite why Stalin’s changed his views. According to Welles, in his book Seven Decisions that Shaped History (1951), it was ‘well known’ that Stalin opposed a genuine international organization based on the principle of sovereign equality, but the clear and simple nature of FDR’s sketch coupled with Roosevelt’s private meetings with Stalin had probably led Stalin to favour the FDR’s policemen concept, whereby the US, Britain, the Soviet Union and China would ‘assume the right to determine the fate of all other peoples.’[21] Furthermore, it is believed that the President’s statement during one of his private meetings with Stalin that American troops would not play a police role in Europe, and that decisions of UN Executive Council would not be binding had also led Stalin to change his views.[22] Although historians such as Hoopes and Binkley state that Stalin had ‘come to agree that the new international entity be a central, worldwide organization’, they have neglected the fact that FDR’s diplomatic skills had probably played a role in leading Stalin to change his point of view.[23] Thus, after gaining Stalin’s support for establishing a global body Roosevelt rejoiced in his diplomatic victory and reported that, despite their ideological differences, the US in the future would ‘get along very well with [Stalin] and the Russian people’ for the benefit of world peace.[24]

In light of Stalin’s change in thought, Churchill, who wanted to promote a united front on all issues to the general public, conceded that his regional concept was too fragmented for creating a united international organization. Thus, Roosevelt’s sketch and his diplomatic savvy at the Teheran Conference pressured Churchill into supporting his model. Churchill stated that:

the hope of the future lay in the most speedy ending of the war and the establishment of a World Instrument to prevent another war, founded upon the combined strength of the three Great Powers, whose leaders had joined hands in friendship around the table.[25]

Therefore, the Teheran Conference marked a defining moment in the process of creating the UN because Roosevelt at Teheran had achieved an agreement among the Great Allied Powers that an international organization would be formed to ensure lasting peace after the war.

At the conclusion of the conference Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin wrote up the ‘Three Power Declaration’, which not only outlined the agreements made by the three great allied leaders at the Teheran Conference but was also a declaration that represented the unofficial birth of the UN. Eleanor Roosevelt stated in her memoirs that ‘after the [Teheran] meeting the cooperation among the three men [Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill] grew steadily closer.’[26] In this declaration the leaders from the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union reaffirmed ‘the supreme responsibility resting upon us and all the United Nations to make a peace which will…banish the scourge and terror of war.’[27] In their ‘Three Power Declaration’ they also stated that the ‘establishment of an international organization’ would help to bring about ‘enduring peace.’[28] Informally on the last day of the Teheran Conference Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin also agreed that this world security organization would consist of three main bodies: an assembly, an executive committee, and an enforcement agency. The third body was to be constituted by the ‘Four Policemen’, which would have the power to deal immediately with any threat to the peace or sudden emergency.[29] Although historians Hoopes and Brinkley note that the three great leaders at Teheran had reached ‘agreement on [the] momentous undertakings to win the war and consolidate peace’, most historians who have written on the genesis of the UN like Hoopes and Brinkley did not see this declaration and the achieved agreement by the Great Allied Powers as marking the unofficial creation of the UN.[30] The signing of the ‘Three Power Declaration’ by the leaders of the Great Allied Powers was thus an historic achievement thanks to Roosevelt’s diplomatic abilities and represented the unofficial birth of the UN, as ‘Roosevelt believed that the Teheran meeting had established the basis for a postwar security structure between the Western states and the Soviet Union.’[31] Consequently, according to historian Paul Mayle, the Teheran Conference was ‘one of those great occasions on which history hinges.’[32]

Roosevelt’s achievements at the Teheran Conference won support from not only people within his own administration but also from the American public. According to Hull, ‘FDR’s inspiring vision, his high statesmanship, and his superb leadership were factors without which the UN could not have [been formed].’[33] A Gallup poll taken in June 1943 indicated that 78 per cent of the American people supported the formation of an international organization.[34] Another major outcome from the Teheran conference was that the US Congress passed two resolutions in favor of a global assembly, which gave public sanction to the process.[35] Further, Roosevelt achievements at Teheran gained the support of key Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who went on to be crucial in gaining much needed Congressional and Senate support needed to create an international organization for lasting peace.[36] According to Hoopes and Brinkley, Vandenberg became the key figure in the US Senate, as ‘he served as a bridge between internationalist and isolationist Republicans’ and because he supported Roosevelt’s conservative policy of the four-power alliance.[37] Hence, the leadership and passion shown by Roosevelt at Teheran proved to be a decisive factor in leading to the creation of the UN.

Therefore, Roosevelt not only showed great leadership in setting the agenda at the Teheran Conference of 1943 for the need for a global body but also after discussions about the ‘Four Policemen’ concept he used the sketch and his excellent diplomatic skills to probably secure Stalin’s, then Churchill’s, support for his preferred model for the UN, which in the end paved the way for the eventual creation of the UN. According to Sherwood, ‘if there was any supreme peak in Roosevelt’s career, I believe it might well be fixed at this moment, at the end of the Teheran Conference.’[38] Nevertheless, the task of finalizing the structure and the general outlines of the Charter of the eventual UN was still an issue for further debate, and the question remained whether the ideas within FDR’s sketch would become forgotten or whether they would go on to shape the eventual structure of the UN in 1945.

CHAPTER 3:THE SKETCH’S LEGACY

The Charter of the United Nations, which you have just signed, is a solid structure upon which we can build a better world…where human beings may be permitted to live decently as free people.

After the Teheran Conference of 1943 all that remained was to work out the fine details of the structure and format of the world security organization, which was no small task, but one that certainly could be accomplished. Upon his return from Teheran Roosevelt ordered his postwar planners in Hull and Pasvolsky to use the model found in the sketch to create a more detailed US proposal. On 29 November 1943, Roosevelt was presented with the latest draft for a proposed international organization by the newly formed Informal Political Agenda Group, which was headed by Pasvolsky and overseen by Hull. The group in coming up with this proposal had agreed with Roosevelt’s ideas of establishing a General Assembly representing all nation states and forming specialized agencies; however, they wished to modify FDR’s ‘Four Policemen’ concept. FDR’s ‘Four Policemen’ concept would become transformed into a Security Council made up of five permanent members and approximately six non-permanent members that would serve two-year terms. The Security Council would become the primary institution charged with the peaceful resolution of international conflicts.[100] Although the ‘Four Policemen’ concept would be reduced to permanent membership on the Security Council, Roosevelt accepted this proposal on 3 February 1944 because the sprit of Roosevelt ‘Four Policemen’ concept was still kept alive with the Great Powers continuing to play a central role in security issues and ensuring world peace. Furthermore, Roosevelt also formally cleared Hull to use this proposal as the basis of the US government’s proposal at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington D.C. in the autumn of 1944; and Roosevelt also used this proposal himself when discussing the postwar institution again with Churchill and Stalin at the Yalta Conference of 1945.[101] Although much was agreed upon at Yalta, many of the unresolved issues from the Conference and the effects of being Commander in Chief of US forces during World War II had taken a toll on Roosevelt’s health, which was already strained as a result of suffering from polio since 1921. A few months after Yalta Roosevelt’s ailing health caught up with him and he died on 12 April 1945. This, however, did not stop the delegates from fifty nations at the San Francisco Conference from finalizing plans and establishing the UN on 24 October 1945. This chapter aims to not only show the pivotal role that Roosevelt continued to play in creating the UN but also aims to show that while Roosevelt after Teheran was willing to negotiate and make some changes to the model outlined in his sketch at future conferences, the changes made at the Dumbarton Oaks, Yalta and San Francisco Conferences still kept the Great Power concept found in Roosevelt’s sketch alive and thus left a lasting legacy.[102]

On 3 February 1944 after talks with Hull and Pasvolsky Roosevelt agreed to form an eleven-member Security Council with permanent and non-permanent members rather than simply having a four-member executive Security Council, which he had earlier wanted. Second, Roosevelt agreed that the Security Council would exclusively deal only with security issues, while the General Assembly, where all states had a vote would deal with all non-security matters. Although the ‘Four Policemen’ concept had been transformed into the idea of having a Security Council after talks with his postwar planners, the new agreed upon model still retained the spirit of the sketch, as the Great Powers still had control of the enforcement of peace. Based on this proposal by Hull and Pasvolsky, Roosevelt again showed his leadership qualities by asking Hull to invite the other big powers to attend the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington to finalize plans for creating a new world security organization.[103]

DUMBARTON OAKS CONFERENCE – AUGUST-OCTOBER 1944

In the autumn of 1944, delegations from the US, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China, converged on Washington D.C. to begin drawing up the blueprint for the postwar world organization in what became known as the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. According to Schild, the Dumbarton Oaks Conference of 1944 and not the Teheran Conference of 1943 marked the key point in creating the UN because it was the first time the diplomats from the Great Powers had come together to form a united model for the UN that aimed to ‘prevent local conflicts from turning into World War III.’[104] Yet without the efforts by Roosevelt at Teheran in securing support from Stalin and Churchill to create an international organization the Dumbarton Oaks Conference would not have taken place. Although Roosevelt took no part in the Conference, he sent representatives including Pasvolsky from the Informal Political Agenda Group, to present the US proposal and promote it as being the ideal model to create a new world security organization. Much was agreed upon at the conference, however there were still two very sensitive issues that had not been resolved at Dumbarton Oaks; first, there was the Soviet demand for sixteen seats in the General Assembly, one for every member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); second, a deadlock developed among the Great Powers over whether or not permanent members of the Security Council should be granted veto powers.[105] In the end it was decided that these issues would be resolved at the upcoming Yalta Conference of 1945.

In spite of such disputes, the Conference drew up a comprehensive proposal ‘for the establishment of a general International organization’, which became known as the United Nations. With very few modifications, the Dumbarton Oaks proposals embodied the American plan for a world organization consisting primarily of a General Assembly and a Security Council. In place of the ‘Four Policemen’, the member nations were to provide stand-by military forces through separate agreements with the Security Council, which could then employ them in a crisis. Thus the spirit of the ‘Four Policemen’ concept remained even though the idea had been transformed.[106]

THE YALTA CONFERENCE – FEBRUARY 1945

(Big Three meet at the Yalta Conference of 1945)

In February 1945, the ‘Big Three’ meet for the second and last time at the Yalta Conference. The initial discussions regarding the setting up of an international institution by the ‘Big Three’ leaders at the Yalta conference concerned the issue of permanent membership for the Security Council. Although the Big Three were supposed to be dominant, the United States had been insisting on the inclusion of China, ever since Roosevelt had outlined his ‘Four Policemen concept in his sketch at Teheran in 1943. Both Britain and the Soviet Union felt that, on the basis of contribution to the war effort, China had little claim to Great Power status, but both submitted to America’s demands. As compensation, Britain had requested permanent membership in the Security Council for France, as French participation in the Security Council would create equal strength for Britain and the US, each having what Churchill called a ‘faggot’ vote. Roosevelt agreed to the inclusion of France, on the condition that France has a suitable government; the Soviets unconditionally concurred. Thus, the US, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China and France would become permanent members of the Security Council.[107]

Nonetheless, to bring the United Nations into being, it was necessary for Roosevelt to resolve both the veto issue and the quixotic matter of Stalin’s demand for extra seats in the General Assembly.[108] After some heated discussions the new Secretary of State, Edward R. Stettinius, who had replaced Hull in November 1944 had reached an agreement with his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, regarding the veto vote for the great powers and the issue was thus settled. Although the idea of the veto vote undermined Roosevelt’s ‘Four Policemen’ concept in that the great powers would no longer have the special responsibility of being a policemen in the postwar world but could now vote for inaction, FDR’s four-power concept still had a lasting legacy as the great powers still had control over the enforcement of peace. The issue regarding the voting procedure in the General Assembly was also resolved, as Roosevelt reluctantly accepted the Soviets revised version of requesting two extra seats in the General Assembly, one for the Soviet Union and one for the Ukraine, in order to create make sure the UN was established.[109] After resolving these contentious issues it was also decided by the three great leaders at Yalta to invite all the United Nations or Allied Powers to a Conference at San Francisco to officially finalize plans for creating the United Nations international organization. According to Schlesinger, Roosevelt’s diplomatic efforts at Yalta were more important then at Teheran because FDR played a major role at Yalta in ensuring that the San Francisco Conference occurred.[110] Yet it is quite clear that without Roosevelt’s negotiating skills at Teheran in securing cooperation among the Great Powers, future Conferences like the ones at Yalta would not have taken place. Moreover, Teheran was important because Roosevelt through drawing the sketch had settled on a working model for a new world security organization, which formed the basis of discussions at Yalta on the issue of creating a new global body for world peace.

Despite giving in to Soviet demands at Yalta, Roosevelt apparently left Yalta feeling that he had taken an enormous stride towards lasting world peace. On board the ship on the way home, Roosevelt told reporters that the United Nations would evolve into the best method ever devised for stopping war’ and declared that as early as possible a ‘general international organization to maintain peace and security’ would be established.[111] In his report to Congress on the Yalta Conference on 1 March 1945, Roosevelt was equally optimistic because he looked forward to the drafting of a Charter at San Francisco on 25 April 1945, ‘under which the peace of the world will be preserved and the forces of aggression permanently outlawed.’[112] The sudden death, however, of President Roosevelt on 12 April 1945 meant that he did not see the UN become established, but many people, especially internationalists, held him up as a martyr, linking him with Wilson as one who had fallen in the great cause of trying to create a world security organization. According to Welles:

there were few among his advisors in 1945 who were not in wholehearted agreement with him, and who did not share his belief that the nations bound together in the common struggle against Germany and Japan should likewise bind themselves together through the UN organizations to produce a peaceful world after the fighting was done.[113]

Thus, the man who sought tirelessly to create a new world security organization, as evidenced by his efforts at the Teheran Conference and in proceeding conferences had meant that Roosevelt became hailed as the architect of the UN, which was an institution that hoped to ensure an idealistic world order that aimed to bring about lasting world peace.[114]

THE SAN FRANCISCO CONERENCE – THE UN IS BORN

On 25 April 1945, delegations from fifty nations, whom for the most part had all declared war on Germany and Japan and had subscribed to the United Nations Declaration, had gathered at the city of the Golden Gate for the United Nations conference, which lasted exactly two months. The task that lay before the delegates was to honour Roosevelt’s passing by establishing the UN. This required assessing the Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta conferences proposals, in order to produce a Charter acceptable to all nations. Above all, the right of each of the ‘Big Five’ to exercise a veto vote on action by the powerful Security Council provoked long and heated debate, however eventually the smaller powers conceded the point in the interest of setting up the world organization.[115] In response to this Luard argued that the UN was ‘an organization in which the great powers of the world would have the dominant say.’[116] Thus, while the ‘Four Policemen’ concept had been transformed into the idea of having a Security Council, the UN once established was not that far from the model outlined in FDR’s sketch.

On 25 June 1945, all the delegates from the fifty nations met in a full session in the San Francisco Opera House for the last meeting whereby they approved the UN Charter consisting of 111 articles. The Charter established six principal UN organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. The Security Council would be the key organ in the organization with the responsibility of ensuring world peace and preventing World War III from occurring. To Roosevelt’s credit this final model of the UN is quite similar to the one he designed in his sketch at Teheran and thus shows his ideas left a lasting legacy.[117] In President Truman’s address to the final session of this historic conference Truman stated that, ‘the Charter of the United Nations, which you have just signed, is a solid structure upon which we can build a better world…where human beings may be permitted to live decently as free people.’[118] Schlesinger noted that the San Francisco Conference and not the Teheran Conference had marked a defining point in the process of creating the UN because it led to the UN officially being formed.[119] Yet the key moment in the process of creating the UN came at the Teheran Conference because it was at Teheran that the Great Allied Powers made it clear that they were committed to creating a new international organization and that without this commitment conferences like the one at San Francisco would not have occurred. On 24 October 1945, the UN was founded, and Roosevelt’s vision had become a reality with fifty nations becoming members of the UN. Thus, after five years of planning Roosevelt fulfilled his goal of creating a world organization that was designed to end war and promote peace, justice and better living for all mankind.[120]

CONCLUSION

The United Nations will evolve into the best method ever devised for stopping war.

After five years of deliberation over the terms and structure of what a world security organization might look like, the United Nations international organization of nation stateswas officially created on 24 October 1945. Although Roosevelt was not alive to see this historic day, he had nonetheless played an instrumental role in helping to create this organization. In particular, the ideas in Roosevelt’s sketch drawn at the Teheran conference of 1943, including his ‘Four Policemen’ concept and the ideas of establishing a General Assembly and specialized agencies had played an important part in helping to shape the structure of the UN, and influenced the idea of having permanent members on the UN Security Council. Roosevelt’s efforts at the Teheran Conference should also be noted because it was this Conference that marked a defining moment in the process of creating the UN because the ‘Three Power Declaration’ reached at the end of the Conference represented the unofficial birth of the UN, as the Great Powers were now committed to creating the UN. According to Anne McCormick, from the New York Times, who had interviewed FDR just three weeks before he died, Roosevelt had achieved his ambition ‘of going down in history as the president who had succeeded where Woodrow Wilson had failed in making the US the great bastion’ of a security system that would guarantee peace in a new world order.[122] Hence, one man, and one man alone, made it possible for us to have a working United Nations organization before the end of World War II. That man was President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt’s ability to achieve his vision proved that he had great leadership qualities and a great sense of determination, which was clearly evidenced when FDR worked on his ideas regarding the ‘Four Policemen’ concept and decided to draw a clear and simple sketch design of the structure of a new world security organization at the Teheran Conference of 1943. Although his sketch seemed to play a small part in the overall proceedings of establishing the UN in 1945, it was nonetheless significant, because it not only reaffirmed FDR preferred model for the UN but also the model contained in the sketch formed the basis on which Roosevelt successfully gained Stalin and Churchill’s commitment to establish a new world security organization, as evidenced when they signed the ‘Three Power Declaration’ at the Teheran Conference of 1943. The sketch was also significant because the basic ideas entailed in the sketch went onto to become with some modifications embodied into the final UN plans in 1945. Roosevelt had thus worked tirelessly to create an international organization to bring about global peace for the benefit of humanity and it was the work done at the Teheran Conference that laid the groundwork for the future conferences that went on to influence the final form of the UN in 1945.[123]

One of the key ideas central to FDR’s sketch that helped shape the structure of the UN was Roosevelt’s ‘Four Policemen’ concept. Although FDR’s great power concept was transformed into the idea of having permanent members on the UN Security Council who could exercise a veto vote, the basic tenet of Roosevelt’s idea of the great allied powers bearing the responsibility for maintaining international peace and security still remains the case today. This was a remarkable achievement because even after more than sixty years Roosevelt’s ideas are still pertinent, even though the world’s security threats have changed greatly since World War II. Although Roosevelt’s concept did not prevent the bipolar Cold War conflict between the US and the Soviet Union from occurring during the second half the twentieth century, his realist vision for world peace has left a lasting legacy on world politics.[124]

In summing up my discussion for this thesis it is also important to understand whether Roosevelt’s intentions in forming a world security organization, as evidenced in the sketch, were based on realist or Wilsonian ideals. Although most of Roosevelt’s polices regarding the creation of an international organization were based on realist ideals, FDR was a complicated character who throughout the process of creating the UN adopted both idealistic and realist agendas. On the one hand Roosevelt was idealistic and inspired by Wilson’s efforts in creating the League of Nations in 1920, and thus adopted a Wilsonian ideal to design a similar agency to encourage and facilitate international cooperation among nation states. According to Black, Roosevelt had ‘gradually built the United Nations from a slogan into a concept for an updated Wilsonian organization to preserve peace and promote progressive government.’[125] On the other hand Roosevelt was also a realist. Roosevelt’s realist ideas had come from being inspired by Machiavellian ideals learnt when he was involved in student politics at school. A clear example of Roosevelt’s realist nature can be seen through his ‘Four Policemen’concept that he outlined in his diagram, which was an idea rooted in the realities of balance of power theory and that had been stimulated by the events of World War II.[126] Roosevelt was thus a clever politician who knew when to adopt an isolationist, interventionist, Wilsonian, realist or pragmatic agenda or even a mixture of all of them depending on the issue.[127] Hence, FDR’s mixture of Wilsonianism and realism created a yin and yang type of balance, which played a fundamental role in aiding him to form the UN.[128]

Another major purpose of this thesis was to show how a simple sketch can influence and shape history. It has often be said that pictures or sketches can tell a thousand words and thus visual sources should not be discounted when writing about history.[129] For example, on 9 October 1944 in Moscow, Churchill and Stalin sat down, bypassing the bureaucrats, and with a pencil and a piece of paper jotted down a ‘Percentage Agreement’, whereby Churchill and Stalin had carved up Europe into zones of influence.[130] In sitting down and drawing up this agreement Churchill and Stalin had changed history. Likewise, Roosevelt’s sketch that he drew at the Teheran Conference of 1943 also changed history, as it played an important role in helping to shape the eventual structure of the UN in 1945. Hence, one cannot underestimate how important diagrams and sketches can be in helping to shape and influence history.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that the significance of Roosevelt’s sketch at the Teheran Conference of 1943 has been overlooked, as the sketch, which included the ‘Four Policemen’ concept, marked a key stage in the process of creating the UN because it not only outlined Roosevelt’s preferred model for the UN but it was also this model that Roosevelt used to gain the support of Stalin and Churchill for creating a new world security organization. The sketch has also left a lasting legacy, as to Roosevelt’s credit the great powers still play a key role in the UN Security Council proceedings up to the present day. Moreover, the UN has managed to survive for more than sixty years and now has 192 members.[131] According to Hoopes and Brinkley the UN since its formation has made ‘significant contributions to the political stability, economic development, and physical well being of mankind.’[132] Having said that current world leaders have failed to update and adequately reform the UN and its bodies such as the Security Council, which is still structured around the great powers of World War II and not the great powers in the modern world.[133] Despite this, Roosevelt was accurate in stating that ‘the United Nations will evolve into the best method ever devised for stopping war.’[134] This is because in our current age where warfare still exists, as evidence through the recent conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Lebanon in 2006, the UN through its efforts in achieving a ceasefire still uniquely embodies the highest hopes of human kind by trying to enforce the peace around the world and to live up to Roosevelt’s utopian dream of seeking ‘enduring peace.’[135]

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